(TibetanReview.net, Jul25’26) – India has on Jul 24 taken strong exception to remarks attributed to its External Affairs Minister S Jaishakar by China, saying New Delhi’s position towards it on the “Taiwan and Tibet issues” had remained unchanged and that, in particular, it respects China’s sovereignty.
Responding to questions at his weekly media briefing about the Chinese foreign ministry’s account of Jaishankar’s meeting with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Manila on Jul 22 – on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit and ASEAN-related foreign ministers’ talks – Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal has said India had consistently respected China’s sovereignty, but China had violated India’s territorial integrity.
“The external affairs minister said that when it comes to sovereignty issues, it is actually India that should be, and is, raising them. India does not violate China’s sovereignty in any manner and has been consistent. But China [has been] in illegal occupation of Indian territory in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh since 1963, where India’s right is officially acknowledged even by China,” the PTI news agency Jul 24 quoted Jaiswal as saying.
Jaiswal has added that there were “Chinese projects on territories in Jammu and Kashmir that belong to India, and we object to that”.
Jaiswal’s remarks were prompted by a readout posted on China’s foreign ministry website after Jaishankar’s meeting with Wang in Manila on Jul 22.
The readout quoted Jaishankar as saying that India’s position on “such issues as Taiwan and Xizang remains unchanged”, alongside a line describing India as respecting China’s sovereignty and committed to a forward-looking, cooperative relationship.
The report noted that this was the first such Chinese readout involving Jaishankar to bracket Tibet with Taiwan.
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The report also noted that this is the second time in less than a year that a Chinese readout of a Jaishankar-Wang meeting has drawn a public response from New Delhi.
The report pointed out that last August, after Wang’s visit to New Delhi, China’s foreign ministry issued a Mandarin readout quoting Jaishankar as saying,“Taiwan is part of China“, a line also carried by the state news agency Xinhua. Jaishankar’s own opening remarks, published on the MEA’s website, made no reference to Taiwan.
Rather, the MEA’s press release on the visit said there was “no change in our position on Taiwan”, adding that India, like the rest of the world, maintained a relationship with Taiwan “focused on economic, technology and cultural ties” and intended to continue it.
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The last time India explicitly endorsed the one-China policy in a bilateral joint statement was during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China in 2008.
The reference was dropped from the joint communique issued during then-Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in 2010, after ties had become strained over issues including China’s practice of issuing stapled visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and its refusal to grant a visa to the then-Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General BS Jaswal.
Since then, no Indian government has restored the explicit language. New Delhi has instead stuck to variations of the “no change” formula it used again on Jul 24, even as India and Taiwan continue to run trade representative offices in each other’s capitals, the report noted.